Page 54 of Penance

He tasted me.

Huxley scoots over, standing up to let Max out of the booth. My gaze dropping back to the table, I give a soft shake of my head to myself.Idiot.He just thinks I’m some sort of desperate whore now, can’t even have one drink without needing to get dicked down.

Fuck me.

“You comin’, Princess?” his eyebrows rising on his forehead as he plucks a cigarette from behind his ear. Placing it between his teeth before producing another from his other ear, offering it up to me. “Smoke?”

This ishisolive branch.

I nod once, a soft smile on my lips as Kacey lifts me clean off the seat. A squeal escaping me, he plants my feet down on either side of his wide thighs, holding me over him. His soppy grin wide as he stares up at me, his big hands on my hips.

“Let me down, Big Man,” I laugh as he continues to keep me up above him.

He leans in, planting a kiss on my leather covered pussy. My cheeks heating as I hear someone across the bar wolf whistle before he’s swinging me down into Huxley’s waiting arms with a chuckle. Hux sweeps me into him, pressing a chaste kiss to my lips. Straightening my t-shirt so it covers more of my shoulders. He takes my jacket from where Kacey hands it to him, draping it carefully over my shoulders. I look past him to Max who’s watching me with a look I can’t quite decipher. My stomach bottoms out as he offers me his hand. Huxley instantly deciding for me, he takes mine and places it in Max’s.

“We’re okay with it, Darlin’,” he breathes in my ear as Max starts to weave his way to an exit.

Pulling me behind him so I don’t get crushed, I glance back over my shoulder at Huxley. His dark eyes twinkling, he winks and disappears from view. I swallow the dry lump in my throat, keeping close to Max’s back as he grips my hand and pulls us through the swarm of people. It’s even busier now, louder. Not that I’d noticed either of those things in the last half hour. Ignorance is bliss, and definitely not something I’m used to. I can’t believe I let my guard down like that and in a pub of all places, especially one this busy. My hackles are usually up, my mind hyper aware of everyone and everything around me. But apparently, I came to a pub to get dick drunk above alcohol poisoning.

Chapter12

Kyla-Rose

Max pulls me through the crowd, pushing out of a fire exit into the alley behind. The cold December air assaulting my flushed face like hundreds of tiny papercuts as wind whips around us. I follow the alley down a short way, standing beside a large, green recycling bin. Cardboard overflowing from it despite its industrial size and piling up on the floor, but it helps stop the wind lashing at us on one side. Colourful graffiti covers the opposite wall, the bright green emergency exit light above the door the only thing allowing us to see. I kick my foot up against the brick, Max doing the same beside me. Offering me a cigarette, the white menthol stick pinched between his thumb and finger. I take it, our hands brushing.

“Thanks,” I smile softly, quickly placing it between my lips.

“’ere,” Max rumbles, flicking a little lime green lighter in my face.

The flame jumping around wildly in the arctic wind, despite his cupped hand around it. It finally catches as I inhale, the cherry burning brightly. I let my eyes fall shut, exhaling smoke through my nose as I lazily keep the cigarette between my lips. In through my mouth, out through my nose. Laying my head back against the wall, the vibrations of the music echoing through my skull.

“Lala, I wanna make shit right,” Max sighs. I lazily roll my eyes over to him. “I wanna not have this,” he grits his teeth. Motioning between us with his hand, “this tension, this angsty bullshit. It ain’t fuckin’ right, Lala, this ain’t supposed to be us.”

Inhaling deeply, I roll my cigarette between my teeth. Letting the smoke billow out from my lungs, puffing out between my teeth in gentle clouds. The wind whipping it away into the dark.

“Whatissupposed to be us, Maddox? I don’t think we wereeveron the same page.”

I feel my insides twist, coiling like a viper ready to strike. My demon clawing at my chest. Her jagged claws slicing through flesh and bone, the hurt lodging in my throat. My memory flashing all those nights he’d be covered in love bites, stinking of someone else’s shitty perfume, to the front of my mind. Drunk out of his mind, pounding on my window in the middle of the night. I always fucking let him in.

“I-”

“Do you remember the night that you came over? The one when you threw a handful of shingle at my bedroom window from next door’s pathway and almost gave me a heart attack because it sounded like a pellet gun?” I interrupt him, cutting him off so I can make my point.

“Lala-”

“You hadn’t so much as looked at me for three months, but that night you turned up at my house. I’d just scrubbed sick from the carpet; Mum had smashed my head into the bathroom door in a fit of rage. Splitting my eyebrow before she proceeded to chuck up all over the hall. I scrubbed that carpet so I didn’t call you. I had to force myself to stop thinking about you, but every time something bad happened you’re the one I wanted to save me. I wanted to run to you, have you take me into your arms and swear to me I never had to go back. Would never have to be away from you again,” I stare ahead as I talk.

Not wanting to see his face as I travel back in time. My lipstick keeping my cigarette attached to my bottom lip.

“I showered myself in ice cold water. Using diluted bleach on my hands, trying to scrub the scent of sick from my fingertips before getting into bed. The electric was shut off because we hadn’t paid our bill and I didn’t wanna have to crawl to Dee and ask for money. I finally dragged myself into bed after two-am, my eyes just closing when something hit my window. And there you were, drunk off your arse all because Henry Sawyer asked me to a party. Do you remember that night Max?”

“Yeah,” he swallows guiltily with a nod.

“You fell into my bed, stinking of someone else. Covered in hickeys, lipstick on your skin and shitty perfume on your clothes. And you calledmea no-good tramp, white trash, the likes of Henry Sawyer much too good for someone like me. He went to that fancy boys’ school, you said he was only interested in handing me off to his pervert daddy, you remember that?” I question.

Ice pricking my skin but hot anger pulsing through my veins as I remember how much those words had hurt at the delicate age of fifteen.

“Yeah,” he rasps.

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